The Best
Sky Castle was 2019’s best drama, but it was Be Melodramatic’s year.
That’s the conclusion from a poll of 100 drama watchers (79 for the second poll) on the best and worst in Korean dramas this year.
While the brilliant, darkly-funny satire Sky Castle was resoundingly voted Best Drama of 2019 with 18% of the vote, Be Melodramatic was voted Favourite Drama and was also voted The One That Made You Cry the Most (20%) and The One With the Best Ensemble Cast (29%).
It seems that while people appreciated how good the blistering satire on South Korea’s obsession with educational attainment was, they didn’t necessarily enjoy it as much as some other shows: especially the very low-rated cult hit about a rookie screenwriter.
Like last year’s surprise critics’ hit, I’m Not a Robot, Be Melodramatic’s average rating of 1.5% did nothing to dissuade its devoted fans. Also ignoring low ratings of around 3% are the fans of the whacky Pegasus Market, who voted the show Most Underrated for 2019, very closely followed by the chilling, perfectly-plotted Children of Nobody that wowed its (small number of) viewers early in the year.
In fact, fans of Pegasus Market propelled the show into number three on the list of The One That Made You Laugh the Most (9%) despite not being an option in the original poll.
Even with the huge number of write-in ballots for Pegasus Market, My Fellow Citizens, was still the One That Made You Laugh the Most (22%), although Extraordinary You (19%) was close behind.
Rather surprisingly given the criticism of the main relationship in Search Query:WWW (15%), it won Best Romance with the office drama The Secret Life of my Secretary (13%) not far behind. It’s possible both results were driven by votes on the second romances, which just goes to show that poll questions need to be less ambiguous.
The Worst
If the result of the Best Drama award was clear, it was even more so for the worst. Ji Chang-wook’s universally-panned comeback drama Melting Me Softly got a whopping 46% of the vote for Worst Drama, with Abyss, Arthdal Chronicles and Absolute Boyfriend trailing in at joint second with only 8% each.
Melting Me Softly also got Best Fan Wall Meltdown (16%) and scored big in Worst Romance (20%), coming second only to the Memories of the Alhambra (23%) and its crying pot plant.
However, the ‘universally-panned’ component precluded it from the Most Overrated category. Instead, the Games of Thrones-esque, fantasy Arthdal Chronicles made it across the line, with the Noona romance Encounter/Boyfriend very close behind.
I guess divorce is hard on everybody.
The Most Important Award
It was a difficult decision we forced you to make but you made it.
I can finally reveal that the Secret Life of my Secretary won the inaugural award for Best Fish with over 50% of the vote. I suspect at least some of these votes are for the moss balls but, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, I will allow it.
The Results
Best Drama
Sky Castle
Author’s Pick: Sky Castle
Favourite Drama
Be Melodramatic
Author’s Pick: My Strange Hero
Worst Show
Melting Me Softly
Author’s Pick: Melting Me Softly
Most Underrated
Pegasus Market
Special Mention: Children of Nobody
Author’s Pick: My Fellow Citizens
Most Overrated
Arthdal Chronicles
Special Mention: Encounter/Boyfriend
Author’s Pick: Romance is a Bonus Book
The One That Made You Laugh The Most
My Fellow Citizens
Author’s Pick: My Fellow Citizens
The One That Made You Cry The Most
Be Melodramatic
Author’s Pick: The Light In Your Eyes
The One With the Best Villain
My Fellow Citizens
Author’s Pick: My Fellow Citizens
The One With the Best Romance
Search Query: WWW
Author’s Pick: My Strange Hero
The One With the Best Ensemble Cast
Be Melodramatic
Author’s Pick: Tale of Nokdu
The One With the Best Breakout Performance
Lee Jae-wook (Search Query: WWW)
Author’s Pick: Shin Hye-sun (Angel’s Last Mission)
The One With the Worst Ending
Memories of the Alhambra
Author’s Pick: Vagabond
The One With the Best Fan Wall Meltdown
Melting Me Softly
Author’s Pick: Arthdal Chronicles
The One With the Worst Romance
Memories of the Alhambra
Author’s Pick: Secret Life of my Secretary
The One with the Best Fish
Secret Life of my Secretary
Author’s Pick: Graceful Family
Invisible Pink Dragon 
I still can’t believe that Graceful Family didn’t win Best Fish. Picasso ate gold and got a state funeral. You can’t tell me that’s a second place fish.
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Picasso should have won best fish!!!! He was robbed! Can we have a Joint Best Fish?
I don’t think Search Query:WWW should win best romance considering Ta-mi and Mo-gun were awful together.
But Hoo-ja was amazing as the villain for My Fellow Citizens, I couldn’t help but root for her.
Thanks for the poll 🙂
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Didn’t see Secret Life of My Secretary, but am familiar with Picasso. He should’ve at least tied for best fish! 😀 I also strongly suspect the best romance in WWW was for Cha Hyun and Ji Hwan’s loveline. That was super cute! ❤
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